


Settlin'

by FifteenDozenTimes



Series: Homestead [1]
Category: Sparks Nevada Marshal on Mars, The Thrilling Adventure Hour
Genre: Curtain Fic, Domesticity, F/M, sad Sparks Nevada and his sad little life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-27
Updated: 2015-10-27
Packaged: 2018-04-28 10:44:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5087665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FifteenDozenTimes/pseuds/FifteenDozenTimes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s an itch under Red’s skin that she can never quite get rid of. It goes quiet when she’s out ridin’ the plains, when she’s mid-scuffle with some robot rogue or another, when she’s arguin’ something stupid with Nevada, when she’s tangled up with Croach under the open sky, but it’s never gone.</p>
<p>It’s gettin’ worse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Settlin'

**Author's Note:**

> Will I ever be done having feelings about these nerds? Signs point to no.
> 
> Set immediately post-#220 Marshal on Mars; spoilers for that. Takes place before [Homestead](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4950151) and parallel to [Radiation](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4952692).
> 
> Thanks to [epershand](http://archiveofourown.org/users/epershand) for, as always, beta reading, and also for pointing out if I wanted to write some more Red-centric stuff in this universe this would be the ideal way.

Sparks leans heavy on Red on the walk back to her and Croach’s camp. She ain’t about to let him sleep on his own tonight, not after the way all the fight went out of him when Ginny - or whoever - poofed away. He doesn’t argue when she gives him her sleepin’ bag, doesn’t call Croach gross when he brings up embryonic sacs, just rolls over and falls asleep.

“I ain’t never seen him like this,” Red says, rests her head on Croach’s shoulder.

“I have,” he says, “but only once. It will be alright, The Red Plains Rider.”

Red wants to argue, ain’t set up to think things’ll all work out the way Croach is, but she just leans a little harder into him, lets him take her weight, and nods.

When she wakes up, Sparks is gone and there’s a note pinned to her rolled-up sleepin’ bag. 

_Don’t come after me,_ it says. _Take care of Mercury. And yourselves._

Red crumples it up and tosses it in the smolderin’ remains of last night’s fire before she thinks to make sure Croach has seen it. It catches quick and burns out bright; Red takes deep breaths while she watches it turn to ash, steels herself for the day ahead.

*

There’s an itch under Red’s skin that she can never quite get rid of. It goes quiet when she’s out ridin’ the plains, when she’s mid-scuffle with some robot rogue or another, when she’s arguin’ something stupid with Nevada, when she’s tangled up with Croach under the open sky, but it’s never gone.

It’s gettin’ worse. Croach’s arm around her waist at night feels like a trap, the Marshal station feels like a cage, this dang rocket horse she’s all of a sudden responsible for feels like a chain. Red’s gone to all ends of the galaxy fightin’ off an itch like this, but she can’t do that this time.

“I can take the badge and perform your duties,” Croach says, when he wakes up to find her clutchin’ a tin mug of coffee after a long night of no real sleep. “You can take Mercury to the outer reaches.”

“I might,” Red says, but she doesn’t. She’d wanted this, wanted the badge, wanted to try her hand at settlin’ down a bit. She’d wanted it with Nevada as backup, sure, but him bein’ gone shouldn’t change things.

*

Croach misses Nevada more than Red thought he would. They’ve always been weird about each other, but Red’s startin’ to think she misread the whole situation. 

Red sleeps through the night for the first time in months after a particularly good tussle with a particularly ornery robot, and wakes up to an empty camp. Croach’s stuff is neatly packed up, waitin’ for her to pack up hers so they can set up a new camp tonight, so he probably didn’t take to the skies to follow Nevada. Not that he would. Croach don’t deal with his heartache by doin’ things.

By the time she’s packed up camp, fed Mercury, loaded Mercury up, and made her way into town, the sun’s higher than it tends to be when she starts her day, warm and soothin’ on her face. Croach is sittin’ at his desk in the station, Pemily Stallwark’s face up on the video screen.

He’s doin’ paperwork in careful block print, lookin’ up every now and then to ask Pemily a question about something or other he don’t understand. Red didn’t even know he knew how to write; their tribe’s an oral history sort of folk, most of ‘em can’t write in G’loot, much less English.

“Thank you, Moon Marshal Stallwark,” Croach says. “Have you heard from - ah, The Red Plains Rider, you have awoken.”

“Apparently,” she says. “Howdy, Pemily.”

“Howdy, Marshal. And I ain’t heard, Croach, sorry.”

“I was merely curious,” Croach says, a bit too hasty. “Thank you for your assistance.”

“Anytime,” Pemily says; Red ain’t sure Croach catches the pity in her smile, but she sure doesn’t miss it. “Goodnight, you two.”

The screen goes black, and Red turns her full attention to Croach.

“You could’ve asked me for help,” she says.

“I did not want to wake you.”

This ain’t the first time Croach’s done this, far as she can tell from the piles on her own desk that keep gettin’ smaller without her touchin’ a single piece of paper, but she lets it go. Croach’s goin’ through somethin’, best to just let him.

“You got nice handwritin’,” she says, by way of lettin’ it drop.

Felton’s distress signal sounds before she gets a chance to figure out if it was the right thing to say. Croach rides out there with her, even though there ain’t much of a chance handlin’ this’ll take the both of ‘em, and keeps his hoversaddle close.

*

It only takes a week or two to stop feelin’ like they’re waitin’ for somethin’, like any day now Nevada’ll show up with an unfrozen Ginny in tow and life’ll go back to normal. Red used to camp in the same spot for a couple weeks at a time; now she packs up near every morning so she can find somewhere new every night. It helps the itch, a bit, and Croach don’t complain.

When Red can sleep, she wakes up alone, always finds Croach catchin’ up on paperwork in the early morning quiet of the station. When she can’t, they have lazy breakfast together, hold hands and laugh and enjoy each other’s company all the way to the station, and once they get there.

Red ain’t fond of routines, but she reckons she’s got one now, and it ain’t half bad.

*

“He is not returning, is he?” Croach asks. He’d been out fillin’ Mercury’s trough when Nevada called; Red maybe should’ve told him, had him come inside, let them talk, but once Sparks told her he was gone for good she wasn’t particularly inclined to let him.

“He’s goin’ back to Earth,” Red says. “He’s, y’know, from there.”

“I am aware,” Croach says. The trough ain’t half full yet, but he’s stopped pumpin’. Not for the first time, Red wishes he was just a little bit less himself, a little bit better at talkin’. “I think I will return to camp early, if you do not need me.”

“Go ahead,” she says, and paces back and forth across the marshal station floor until both moons are startin’ to rise. She’s good at givin’ space, if she ain’t good at anythin’ else.

Croach’s got a campfire goin’ when she finally makes it out past the edge of town, most of a pot of chili keepin’ warm on the rocks at the edge for her. She can’t read his face, which ain’t unusual, but he shifts close so their sides touch when she sits down.

“I possess the feeling designated ‘love’ for Sparks Nevada,” he says, more to the campfire than to her.

“I know,” she says. “Me too.”

“Romantic love.”

“Yeah,” she says, like that don’t actually come as a bit of a shock. Not shock that he feels that way, at least not entirely, but she hadn’t expected him to ever admit it.

“It does not matter now.”

“It matters,” she says, and rests her head on his shoulder. “There just ain’t anythin’ to be done about it.”

Red eats a few halfhearted bites of chili, since Croach went to the trouble, but she ain’t really in the mood. He doesn’t eat any, just waits for her to finish so he can spread her out on her sleeping bag, work her over with tongues and fingers ‘til she can’t remember her own name.

*

Red sleeps through the night, but when she wakes up Croach is still curled up against her. She feels a bit bad about it, but the itch is damn near unbearable, so she slips out and leaves him there alone so she can saddle up Mercury.

She rides hard, rides fast, pushes the poor ol’ rocket horse harder than he’s been pushed for a long time. She gets in some target practice, shootin’ at cactoids with her laser pistols as she speeds by ‘em, doesn’t pay all that much attention to what she hits or what she misses. Shootin’ feels just as good either way.

It’s high noon by the time she turns back towards camp, after a good long break way out in the dunes for Mercury to catch his breath. Croach is still at camp when she gets to it late in the afternoon.

“Didn’t go to the station?”

“I can sense trouble from here, if need be.”

“Can’t do paperwork, though,” she says. It ain’t the right thing to say, probably, but he don’t really react. Red starts brushin’ down Mercury’s non-rocket bits and makin’ sure he has plenty of space oats, lets Croach brood if that’s what he needs.

“The tribe has moved again,” he says, after a while.

“Closer?”

“Somewhat.”

“We should visit ‘em, it’s been a while.”

“It has.”

Croach is gettin’ at somethin’, she thinks, but she’s tryin’ to steer him towards the same direct approach to his feelings he has to everythin’ else, so she doesn’t do him the favor of coaxin’ it out of him.

“Perhaps we should move our camp there,” Croach says.

“You wanna move back to the village?”

“We could camp outside the village, so you could maintain the distance that makes you comfortable, and I could be closer to my family.”

“You need your people, huh.”

“They are not people, and they are yours as well,” he says. “But yes.”

Red’s fingers start tappin’ against her thighs like they’ve got minds of their own. She’s learnin’, in fits and starts, to love the place she grew up and the beings she grew up with, but the longer she’s there the harder it gets to pretend she ain’t always going to be just a little bit on the outside lookin’ in. She’ll stumble her single tongue around words she can’t ever quite pronounce right, forget to turn her head when she gets called G’rop N’go-goth, do the wrong thing at the wrong time in the wrong place and build up a whole mess of onuses she don’t entirely understand.

They’re gettin’ low on provisions--she’ll have to swing through town before dinner. Croach is watchin’ her, that measured calm face he always wears no matter what’s goin’ on in his head, and if she leaves right now he won’t ask again.

“Maybe for a few nights,” she says; Croach gives her one of his lopsided, grateful smiles, and she can grab onto that when she starts feelin’ off-kilter. 

*

There’s nothin’ on this world or any other to compare with a day spent helpin’ Caretaker restock his pantry. Early mornin’ in his tent, in the same soft linen shift she’s been wearin’ for this since she first made her way back to the tribe, spillin’ sugar and fruit all over herself and meltin’ in the stiflin’ heat; lunch of cheese and bread and handfuls of fruit that didn’t pass muster; afternoon outside, blood-soaked and tired-armed, layin’ out strips of meat to cure. Every time she visits for the next six months, he’ll send her off with handfuls of jerky to keep her saddlebags stocked.

It’s the best part of bein’ back, no contest.

“You should have brought Croach the Tracker,” he says, tongues slippin’ clumsy around English the way Croach’s used to, the way her own slips around G’loot.

“He’s gettin’ some work done so I could take the day off,” she says. 

“I should spend more time getting to know him, as I assume you will be joining soon.”

“Reckon,” Red says, more to the floor than to Caretaker. Their tribe don’t really do long courtships, and Red’s already an outlier for havin’ wed someone other than her betrothed, so she don’t care much, but it bothers Croach anytime things don’t go exactly accordin’ to tribal expectation.

“He is a good match for you.”

“He’s pretty great.”

Most denizens of G’loot Praktaw don’t smile; Caretaker ain’t really an exception, but there’s a particular way his face softens up that gets pretty close.

*

Croach is beautiful after he comes, exo-skin slick and shiny in the flickerin’ of the firelight, soft and sprawled out and lookin’ at Red like she’s the best thing he’s ever seen.

He sighs, sweet and low, when she rotates her wrist a bit, reminds him she’s still inside. Croach rolls his hips up to take her deeper, like she knew he would. The first one’s always just a warm-up for him, just to get him good and sensitive for round two.

“Yeah?” Red asks, even though she knows the answer. His voice gets even lower when he’s turned on, music to her ears.

“Please,” Croach says, and then frowns a little. “But perhaps I should - “

“I’m doin’ just fine,” Red says, works her hips so Croach can feel how wet she is against his thigh. This’ll do nicely.

Croach, always so good at anticipatin’ her needs, tenses his leg a little to give her a firmer surface. It ain’t perfect, hard to balance with just one free hand, but Red’s nothin’ if not resourceful.

Red fucks him slow and deep, just the way he likes it, their Nah Nohtek buzzin’ in her fingers and his egg sacs and all the places they touch, transmittin’ data between them and makin’ everythin’ just a little _more_.

Heat flares up low in her belly, just this side of urgent; her instinct is to stop payin’ attention to Croach and chase it, but that’d be a real shame. Croach’s fingers are tangled in the blanket, head thrown back to expose his throat, feet - exposed to the night air - planted to give himself some leverage. His egg sacs shudder around her fingers as his body clenches around her fingers takin’ her in deeper every thrust. He’s so greedy for her.

“The Red Plains Rider,” he says, gaspin’ a little around the words, makin’ her name prettier than it’s ever been. He’s about to ask for somethin’, she thinks, but he cuts himself off with a cry they can probably hear clear across the village and clenches down good on her fingers as he comes again.

Red sucks his come off her fingers, bitter and a touch metallic and maybe her favorite taste in the world, while she rides his thigh, takin’ some time to just enjoy the slow burn before she tips over and loses control. Croach is no help, fucked out and goofy, just watchin’ her. 

Might as well make it worth his while. Red flicks her tongue around her fingers, makes a big show of savorin’ him, leans forward and - there it is, the angle she needs. Red bears down, grinds a bit wild against him, lets it come over her like a wave rather than the wall she tends to like to crash into.

Croach smiles at her when she slumps against him, curls his arm up around her shoulder, soft buzz of Nah Nohtek between them.

“This is good,” Red says, into his neck; she’s asleep before she knows if he responds.

*

Red starts sleepin’ through the night almost every time, and wakin’ up at near the same time every mornin’. She and Croach have breakfast together, ride to the station together, take down outlaws together, ride home together more often than not. When they have dinner with Croach’s parents, they pretend not to notice every mention of betrothals and younglings; when they have dinner with Caretaker Red tries hard not to laugh at the way he puffs up to intimidate Croach. Croach ain’t never been comfortable with the weird old man at the edge of the village, and Caretaker finds that as close to hilarious as his lack of emotion lets him.

Red’s well and truly gotten herself into a routine, and it ain’t that part that’s bad so much as the fact that itch in her bones is all but gone. She shouldn’t miss it, but it’s been there her whole life, and she ain’t sure what it means to be without it.

Croach doesn’t argue when she starts packin’ up their camp one morning, but she ain’t fond of the way he watches her as they ride to the other side of the village to set back up. Ain’t fond of the way he watches her the rest of the day, either. Even less fond of the way he sits and waits that night for her to sit next to him at the campfire, patient but ready to give her whatever lecture he’s been sittin’ on all day.

“Why did you accept the badge when Sparks Nevada decided to buy the hardware store? You had turned it down every previous time.”

“Reckon what you were sayin’ about family when my pa showed up got me thinkin' a bit. I got a proper family now, and that ain't changed me or gone bad, so maybe settlin' a bit more wouldn't go bad, either.”

“But staying in one place is too much settling.”

“For now, yeah. Maybe not forever, but right now I need this little bit of freedom. I know it ain’t convenient, but - “

“The Red Plains Rider, I have purchased a domicile.”

“You _what_?”

Croach ducks his head; it ain’t like him not to be able to look at her, no matter what they’re talkin’ about.

“It was not my intention. The Widow Johnson was selling it, and I was only going to look and learn about the process, for our future.”

Red don’t really know how to react, but she reaches up to rub the back of Croach’s neck anyway. Of course Croach is the sort of sap likely to wander in and out of open houses, dreamin’ about the life they’ll have someday.

“It was a very nice domicile, The Red Plains Rider. And there was another young couple ready to make an offer.”

“Oh, Croach.” Red’s gonna have to have a serious talk with Wendy. A _serious_ talk.

“It was apparently the event designated Seller's Market, and I did not want to pass up the opportunity. I was going to surprise you with it, but Moon Marshal Pemily Stallwark said that you would not like that.”

Red shouldn't laugh at him, she really shouldn't. He's so sensitive about messin' stuff like this up, missin' social cues, makin' mistakes that a human would designate stupid. But he just looks so dang lost, and it's such a sweet look on him, she can't quite help it.

“It's alright, Croach,” she says, leans in and punctuates it with a smilin’ kiss. “We'll figure somethin' out.”

Red stares into the fire and focuses on breathin’. She could take Mercury out, give him a good run, get out of her head, but it’s late and she ain’t fond of ridin’ by moonlight. It’s important, maybe, not to leave right now; Croach gets her, ain’t never been anythin’ but understandin’ about her need to run, probably would understand it now, but he’s tucked up to her side, head on her shoulder, ‘cause he’s worried he’s about to make her run off for good, and if she can’t stay now she shouldn’t stay at all.

“It is a nice domicile,” he says, when she threads her fingers through his and squeezes. “Outside of town, so you would not feel crowded.”

Red frowns, her brain throwin’ up an image unbidden. “The place we been ridin’ by since we moved the camp out here?”

“Yes.”

“Croach, that place ain’t been on the market since - “

“Since Sparks Nevada left,” he says, quiet, more to the fire than to her.

Of course that’s how he reacted to all the feelings he couldn’t put name to, of _course_ it is. Red sighs and lets go of his hand so she can run her fingers behind his ear, the spot that always makes him sigh and go a little boneless. She pets him, idle, and closes her eyes against the urge to fly to Earth and do some very justified shootin’.

*

Red’s talked to Nevada a couple times since he went back to Earth. Not often, and never for long, but she likes to make sure he’s alive and remind him where he belongs.

He always looks just a little gray when she calls, like that drab little apartment he’s got and that drab little job on that drab little planet are suckin’ just a little bit of life out of him. She can’t bring herself to feel sorry for him this time.

“He bought you a _house_? _You_? A house?”

“Yup.”

“Did you shoot him? Is he dead?”

“I’m fixin’ to shoot you dead, Nevada.”

“What did I do? I’m not even on the same planet!”

She doesn’t say _you made him tell you how much he loved you and then you left_ , or _you messed up his head and got all tangled up in his feelings_ . Ain’t her place to go shoutin’ about Croach’s feelings.

Might be her place to start shoutin’ about her own, but Nevada gave up his access to those when he took off under cover of night and didn’t bother to come home.

“Nothin’, Nevada. I’m just ornery.”

“It’s pretty sweet, though, if you think about it.”

“He’s a sweet guy,” she says, and probably ain’t imaginin’ the way his face softens up a little when she does. Red’s met a lot of stupid men in her life, but Nevada might be the stupidest.

“I’ll be sure to send you a housewarmin’ gift,” he says, and laughs. “Oh, Red, I gotta go, some sort of toilet emergency.”

Okay. Red might feel a little bit sorry for him.

*

Red’s in a foul mood when she leaves the station. Croach left to check somethin’ out at Felton’s and never came back, talkin’ to Nevada just made her sulky, and there wasn’t a single real bit of trouble to break up the afternoon. She’s fixin’ to head back to camp, make sure Croach didn’t get his fool head shot off dealin’ with an actual threat, and take a good long ride to clear her head, when she spots Croach’s hoversaddle outside the house he apparently owns.

It’s a nice place, on a good hunk of land. Lots of windows, lots of yard, already has a hitchin’ post for Mercury out front, and plenty of room for a little stable in the back if they can get someone to build ‘em one. Caretaker would do it, or would know who’s been recently designated Builder or Maker-of-Stables or whatever.

Red maybe can’t blame Croach for not bein’ able to pass this place up, dirty salesman tricks on the part of Widow Johnson or not. 

“I was going to come back to the station,” Croach says, snappin’ her out of her daydreamin’, “but the AI said you were in the middle of a call, and I should not interrupt.”

He’s leanin’ on the front porch railing, watchin’ her with this look in his eyes like he expects her to spook and run off just from lookin’ at the place he wants to settle down with her.

“You spend a lot of time here?”

“Not particularly. I have been furnishing it, whenever I see furnishings I like.”

Red’s been runnin’ and hidin’ and doin’ everything she can to keep from wantin’ this, and Croach has just been buildin’ her a home for when she’s ready to stop. Of course he knew she’d be ready someday, better than she did. 

“Can I see?” she asks, and finally dismounts. Croach’s face breaks into one of those wide grins that’s just this side of creepy, too human for the G’loot face it’s cuttin’ in half. 

“I would like that very much,” he says, and takes her hand to lead her inside.


End file.
